Worry

Have you ever sat alone on a zoom meeting wondering if something has gone wrong?

It was just a slight niggle. With 10 minutes to go there was not the usual number of Pastors online for the pre-meeting banter. In fact there was no one. Then it struck me. Panic! I hadn’t sent out in my usual way the zoom link to the Pastors. I hadn’t even sent it out to our guest who was speaking on Anxiety! How could that have slipped my mind?! That was 2 days ago. Anxiety had grabbed hold of me before the seminar on how to deal with it when it does!

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6 v 25-34)

Let us look at this passage of 10 verses as a whole and then over the next 10 days I will try and give 10 tips to not worrying!

Look at the birds:  Luke’s account says Jesus mentioned the type of birds, ‘ravens’.

A quick research shows this: As intelligent as dolphins, in tests of logic a raven had to get a hanging piece of food by pulling up a bit of string anchoring it with its claw. Ravens have pushed rocks on people to keep them from climbing to their nests, stolen fish by pulling a fishermen’s line out of ice holes, and played dead beside a beaver carcass to scare other ravens away from a delicious feast.

See the flowers of the field growing: Luke’s account says Jesus mentioned the type of flower, ‘wildflower’. A wildflower is any flower that is not planted by intentional human intervention. They can be seen in deserts, forests, meadows and fields. They are so beautiful here in the UK most gardeners actually sow a wildflower patch.

God doesn’t feed the birds and clothe the grass of the field.

But within them both is the ability to do what they need to do and be the best they are created to be. Survive and be beautiful.

So do not worry about stuff.

What you will get and what you will look like. Stop fussing over those things. Stop making life all about worrying whether you will have enough and look your best.

He has built in to you what you need. The ability and the creativity to live and the beauty inside that is more important than any make-up or designer clothes to wear, is in you.

The seminar on Anxiety? The panic was over. It actually turned out alright. It usually does.